This week we welcomed Ross McGill to talk about Social Media and its use by teachers.

Ross says that he first became involved with social media via blogging to update his family about his first son’s condition after he was born at a very low weight. It was about communicating with the family but also some therapy for Ross himself. He was amazed to see how the reaction to his blog snowballed. This led to him starting to apply the same concepts to his teaching reflections and that’s how Teacher Toolkit got started.

Ross has a varied and fascinating story in education which began when he was only 18 and started teaching design and technology to Year 7s at his school in his free periods. Subsequently he did a B.Ed degree and then moved through a variety of schools and teaching situations until his present role at Greig City Academy. In September 2014 he is moving to be Deputy Headteacher at Qunintin Kynaston Academy.

Ross maintains that for him and many teachers, social media has transformed their practice. If you are prepared to contribute, to share, to reflect, then you can get instant feedback. If your contribution is high quality, then you will get a lot of feedback. Also, you can receive helpful critique on your ideas.

Using social media in your own school or department allows you to be outward-facing and Ross recommends starting small, simply by going to Twitter – even without an account – and reading some Twitter biographies and tweets from those learners. For example, looking at twitter.com/teachertoolkit will show you all that Ross is sharing. ICTEvangelist, Mark Anderson has a number of useful guides and tips to get you going…